4 Ways To Use LinkedIn for Recruiting (that Don’t Include InMail)

Michael Altiero March 14, 2016

When you think of recruiting on social networks, you instantly think LinkedIn. The professional social network is arguably the most optimized for recruiting purposes among the small circle of major social network rivals.

Still, many companies and recruiters struggle with attracting candidates on LinkedIn—especially in ways beyond sending InMail. There are many factors that play into this, but luckily there are ways to overcome difficulties and turn around your recruiting efforts on this social network.

This post will dive into four strategies for revamping your recruiting efforts on LinkedIn, so you can drive results your hiring managers will be thrilled with.

Participate in LinkedIn Groups

There are plenty of groups for those in talent acquisition to share best practices and learn from others. The same can be said for any other function. You can take advantage of this by identifying relevant groups your target candidates may be in, and then use that medium to engage in an organic way.

Participating in groups is a great way for recruiters to connect with potential job seekers, as well as build up your own brand. Being seen as an expert in your area can be a huge plus when attracting potential candidates, which ties in nicely to the next way to improve your LinkedIn efforts…

Share Enticing Content

Content is the backbone of just about every social network, and LinkedIn is no exception. Not only will it increase your visibility, sharing quality content can help you be seen as an expert, which will build up your personal brand and make your job as a recruiter a little easier.

What makes up good content? That is the million-dollar question. If you have a personal or company blog, a good practice is to share a combination of original content and articles from other industry professionals. This is a great way to build social and professional relationships.

LinkedIn also just recently changed their approach to sharing videos and images, making them much more prominent in the news feed than an update with just text. Try sharing videos from your company’s YouTube channel, as these tend to get higher engagement ever since LinkedIn enabled native video playing right in the newsfeed. Also, don’t forget to share videos and images in your LinkedIn groups.

Enhance Your Company and Career Page

The first thing is to make sure your company images (profile picture and banner image) match with your company brand and are of good quality. Also be sure to have the summary section filled out so candidates can know a little more about what your company does. Lastly, make sure whoever manages your company page is posting updates regularly. People like to see active company pages.

For an extra fee, you can add a career tab/section to your LinkedIn company page. This page essentially acts as a job hub on LinkedIn that holds open positions in your company, but also combines the all important employer brand element. You can add videos, images, links, and updates to make your brand really stand out. Do not underestimate the importance of employer branding.

Try Sponsored Updates

This one, like a career page, requires a budget. But, if done correctly, can provide a good return on investment. Sponsored updates are a great way to target and reach very specific segments of LinkedIn users.

The key with sponsored updates is having great content to sponsor. If your company has career related videos, sharing those via sponsored updates can be a great strategy. We recently have started to use videos with our sponsored updates and the CTRs (click-through-rates) and engagement rates are significantly higher on average than non-video content.

Sponsored updates requires a bit of trial and error, but can be used as an effective recruiting and employer branding tool with the right creative approach.

Becoming A LinkedIn Recruiting Expert

Social recruiting has a negative stigma attached to it by many in the talent acquisition community. Yet social media has the power to be an important part of your recruiting and employer branding strategy.

LinkedIn is the perfect social network for recruiters to get active on. Thinking outside the box can go a long way on any form of social media, but LinkedIn specifically is a place where recruiters can really make an impact on recruiting for their company.

By trying these and other methods, recruiters can change the way hiring managers and companies view LinkedIn and social media for talent acquisition.

Sign Up

Never miss a post! Join over 40,000 HR professionals and subscribe to the Jibe blog